"You know, when I was pregnant I always prayed that I could show them the magic in the world that you showed me. No one in the world has hope anymore. They criticize people who hope for anything better. But you've always hoped.
You've been so important in my life.. I know you don't think I listen to you, but I do. I remember everything you've told me. Like when mom left us at the restaurant and we walked home holding hands. Or when you told me every time you sleep with someone you lose a piece of your soul. I remember the important stuff you say. Or when you stop to move a kitty out of the road.
I always try to help people because I always saw you doing it. I think about it all the time. Just yesterday I thought about how you bought a little girl a teddy bear on valentine's day because her mom couldn't afford it, when we were in line behind them getting candy.
I wouldn't know how to be kind without you. But you made a difference. You made me, you passed on how you care. All I hope is that the girls love me the way I love you."
Wednesday, June 30, 2021
A Message from Beyond the Grave
Daring to Believe
And I think that it's because I actually believe. That is, I Believe. I believe the things that most people just wish were true, or wish that they dared to wish were true. The things that fill books, movies, poems, songs, and plays, but that aren't part of most people's daily lives: destiny, true love, heroism, altruism, beauty, truth, virtue, the music of the spheres, angels and demons, powers and principalities, and the things of the spirit. I believe them enough to actually try and live my life by them. And that makes people uncomfortable--scares them, even.
It's not enough for me to just read books about how heroes persevere, or how saints sacrifice, or how the pure in heart find true love. I mean to live it, to the absolute best of my ability and the utmost of my strength. Moses did not create God, nor did Paul create Jesus. Homer did not invent heroism, and Ovid not make up true love. They are real, for those with the courage to reach out and take hold of them--and those are the ones about whom the stories are told to the timid and the weak, who think they are just fairy tales. I don't want to be one of the small-minded inhabitants of the Shire who think there are no such things as dragons or dark lords--I don't want to be a Dursley. I want to be one of the ones who visits elves, fights goblins, talks to dragons, and travels with dwarves. Even if that means I end up being roasted by dragon fire or dragged away into dark chasms that open at the back of caves. So be it.
And so, I guess that makes me "dangerous" and "cracked". But that's ok--because I know what I've seen, and I know that it's real. I can't prove it to you, without you having been there. But I know. I have my moments, in which I struggle with doubt. But so does the hero of every story. (Bilbo wished he was back in his nice Hobbit-hole--not for the last time!)
Did you ever notice that, in the Bible, the cowardly and unbelieving are listed alongside perverts, liars, sorcerers, and murderers as being unworthy to enter the kingdom? Try Rev 21:8, for instance. Think about it. What is the one thing Jesus praised most in the Gospels, and what is the one thing he condemned most harshly and frequently? The answers are faith and unbelief, in case you don't know. And faith is not the intellectual assent to a correct set of beliefs, as so many denominations would have you believe. The Pharisees had correct doctrinal beliefs. So does the Devil (James 2:19). The kind of faith Jesus praises is the kind that leads to action and changed life.
So this is how I will live, or I will not live at all. I tried compromising with practical mediocrity, for a large chunk of my life, and I simply won't do it again. It's Truth or nothing for me. Beauty or nothing. Love or nothing. I choose to believe, and if I'm wrong, I've lashed myself to the mast and I'm going down with the ship.
“Then in the name of Aslan,” said Queen Susan, “if ye will all have it so, let us go on and take the adventure that shall fall to us.”
"Nothing now remains for us seven but to go back to Stable Hill, proclaim the truth, and take the adventure that Aslan sends us."
"I was going to say I wished we'd never come. But I don't, I don't, I don't. Even if we are killed. I'd rather be killed fighting for Narnia than grow old and stupid at home and perhaps go about in a Bath chair and then die in the end just the same."
-- C.S. Lewis, from The Chronicles of Narnia
Friday, June 18, 2021
Free Will and the Will of God
Wednesday, June 16, 2021
Sunday, June 13, 2021
Thursday, June 10, 2021
Wednesday, June 9, 2021
Monday, June 7, 2021
"For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, And have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come, If they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame." -- Heb 6:4-6
So, the problem is, about some of it, I am absolutely, positively, totally, completely, 100% sure. That it was real, that it was Him. But about much of it, I am not. Some of it, I'm very sure, but open to being shown that I'm mistaken--but it would take some convincing. Some of it I'm less sure of, but I think probably it was. Some I'm not sure of at all, but I think "maybe," so I try to figure it out before acting, because I don't want to miss it if it was Him. Sometimes He doesn't speak, but leaves me to make my own decision, and I do the best I can with the information I have. The part about which I am completely sure forms a smallish percentage, as far as practical life decisions go--most of it is more theological than practical. So I do my best to navigate the revelation I have received, the revelation I think I have received, the revelation I think I may have received, the revelation I have not received, the situation and evidence before my eyes, and my own judgment, feelings, desires, wishes, thoughts, fears, and dysfunctions. It's not easy. It's a mess. I get it wrong. I screw it up. But I keep trying, because NOTHING and NO ONE is more important to me than Him, and my relationship with Him. Because I have literally, truly, actually met Him, and He Is All. Accept that about me, or don't be in my life.
If your belief system doesn't allow for that, then okay. Believe whatever you want. Believe that I am delusional, or self-deceived, or suffering hallucinations. And I will continue to believe that you are tragically mistaken, and that if you don't get right with Him, you will end up in Hell. But I won't patronize, condescend to, or insult you about it, and I would thank you to afford me the same respect. If you can't do that, then again, don't be in my life. One day, one way or another, you, too, are going to find out just how real He is. And then you will understand.
"And Thomas answered and said unto him, My Lord and my God." -- John 20:28
Sunday, June 6, 2021
Saturday, June 5, 2021
Faith and Folly
Trust in God is not a delusion: it is faith, one of the three theological virtues.
"And now abide faith, hope, and charity, these three. But the greatest of these is charity." -- 1Cor 13:13
Following God, especially following His actual Voice--living a life in communion with and obedience to Him, is foolishness bordering on insanity to those who don't believe. Men have come up with system after system to get around this--always some variant of "He gave us a Book of Rules: we just have to use our own minds to understand and follow them." But that is not following God. Jesus made this clear in his dealings with the Pharisees, who taught just exactly that. And those who say "I follow the Bible," but don't practice listening to the Spirit, are not actually following the Bible at all--because the Bible says that we have to listen to the Spirit. I've addressed this before, here.
If you're traveling in unknown country, you can use a map, or you can follow a guide. Or, the best thing to do is to have both--the map, and the guide to help you interpret and understand it...and to tell you things that aren't on the map, like that the bridge ahead was washed out last month. Being a follower of Christ means you are living in a world that is not your home, trying to find your way back. The map is the Bible, but the guide is the Holy Spirit. And since He was the ultimate author of the Bible, we do well to heed Him.
This is not a perfect or infallible science. It's fraught with error, risk, and danger. One tries, and gets it wrong. Then, hopefully, one learns and gets it better the next time. Frankly, it's a mess. But it's how we grow up, spiritually. Just like growing up in the natural is a mess, filled with the foolishness of childhood and all the mistakes we make.
But of course, this is all hocus pocus and voodoo to those who are spiritually dead, since to them, the spirit doesn't exist.
"For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God.
For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.
Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom: But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness; But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God.
Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men.
For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called: But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are: That no flesh should glory in his presence. But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption: That, according as it is written, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord." -- 1 Cor 1:18-31
"Let no man deceive himself. If any man among you seemeth to be wise in this world, let him become a fool, that he may be wise.
For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, He taketh the wise in their own craftiness.
And again, The Lord knoweth the thoughts of the wise, that they are vain." 1 Cor 3:18-20
I walk a difficult path; the path of faith, and I always will--I will never walk any other. I am always ready to admit that I am capable of getting it wrong, and to acknowledge and apologize when I see that I have. But I will never agree that I am wrong, misguided, or delusional in choosing to live seeking and following His guidance to the best of my ability. If anyone wishes to walk with me, it will be this path and no other. And if they are unable or unwilling, then we must go our separate ways.